stigma
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Arashi remembers her mother's words…


**fandom - X**  
 **title - stigma**  
 **rating - g**  
 **pairing - Sorata + Arashi**  
 **description – Arashi remembers her mother's words…**

 **Disclaimer – X doesn't belong to me.**

He reaches for my left hand, but by reflex, I immediately pull it away with a bothered expression on my face. I can see myself through the reflection of the window.  
I look frightened and it's daunting because I've never seen myself this way before.

His eyes blink at me as he takes a step back. "I'm sorry, Ojou-san."  
"It's nothing," I respond calmly while trying to brush past him, but he's already tearing the large bandaid wrapping and letting it fall the floor of the hallway. Then he gently presses the ends of the adhesive over the burned and skinned top of my left hand.

He takes up the wrappings on the floor and walks away with a solemn nod of his head. As I'm about to resume walking to my room, he calls after me.  
"Ojou-san!" he shouts like the lunatic he is.

I turn around and see him making the stupidest face just to amuse me.

I blink at him and sigh. "You…"  
Then, I quickly turn around with my lips unable to stay straight and give way to turning them upwards.

The warmth of his hands linger on mine as I fold my right hand over my left one when I head for my room…

 **stigma  
By miyamoto yui**

"You are of one of the chosen, so you're very special."

This mantra was always on those cherry lips. Even if the smooth leaves of her flowered face were weathered through, she remained ever young. Her life sustenance was love.  
Mine was formed out of carefully calculated fear, worry, and overprotection of my being. In my growing passive aggressiveness, I looked relaxed.

Actually, it was embedded apathy.

No, it wasn't that she didn't care or love me enough. My garden was filled with the water of her tears and the radiance of her sorrowful smiles.

"You will be taken away, so you should always be ready, Arashi."  
That delicate, whispery voice soothingly said these words to me while she washed my hands until my fingers were wrinkled. It was to make sure they weren't ever dirty.

After all, as I now realize, a child born to a poor student and a priestess like her was supposed to not ever come into existence.

Whenever she was done washing my hands, especially the left one, she would hug and cradle me in her arms in the middle of the semi-spacious room. Among the towel and washbin filled with water, and soap, she would hold me close to her.  
She rocked me back and forth. She used to say a lot of things to me aloud, but I didn't understand anything because I was so little. As I grew up, her continuous apologies to those she betrayed and for causing me to exist in such poverty became quieter and more integrated into our lifestyle.

Even though she didn't tell me she was a priestess, she taught me to pray and chant. She taught me as much as she could, but it was never enough. Mother was forgetting what she originally was.

And she never quite knew how to act and live as a normal woman.

When she would cook dinner, I remembered sticking half of my body out and hanging my arms out the window. I watched all sorts of things. It was my form of entertainment. It was also the only way I could tell time at all.

There were multi-colored balloons gone astray. There were shouts of a man towards a woman whom he took forcefully by the arm. A teenage boy and his sister walked by holding each other's hands. A chubby mother laughed at her small baby pointing at the trees.  
Children would wave at me or make faces, but I couldn't ever talk to them. After all, mother said I couldn't talk to strangers because they might take me away.

"Don't stare out too long," she threatened. It was the only time she ever got truly mad and upset with me. This was the only tone that made my blood run cold and dry. I grew scared of it. With the straight line of unused emotions, I couldn't be unfeeling. I had to fluctuate and react to that soft, horrific voice.  
So, it became a game to me. How could I not be caught looking out the window?

One day, I reached my limit. I just couldn't take it anymore. My child person overtook my better judgment and protested against our everyday lifestyle.  
I cried and cried, saying why couldn't I go outside. Why couldn't I touch the rain or the sunshine? Why couldn't I play like other children or go to school?  
"But you have all that here and I play with you all the time, Ara-chan."  
She smiled at me, but her eyes had frowns as she held back her tears. Maybe even she couldn't understand what was going on in her own mind and she couldn't explain how deep my questions were.  
Children's questions were like that, I suppose.

Or maybe, these were her own questions in addition to the ones that already burned inside her heart?

And so, when she died, I wondered what had happened to those people who were supposed to take me away. Was I truly special as she said I was?

Or was it to mask the quivering fear she had of me? Always, she washed my hands vigorously and religiously.  
Even though I knew nothing of the sword inside of me, she would cry as she wiped my little hands mixed with skin, water, and soap. She'd rub them until there were light burns from the towel.

But as always, my skin recovered to its original state. It was as if she'd never washed and harmed them at all…  
I tried to think nothing of it.

When it finally hit me that she was gone, I wandered out of our house with wide eyes and more questions to the ones I already kept inside my little body. I packed a small bag, took a deep breath, and walked out not knowing where to go. I wanted to figure out the meaning to life with my helplessness as a child clashing with the adult words of experience from my mother.

After a while, though, I abandoned my things along the way and kept on walking onward looking for something I couldn't understand. And finally, I came to the point that I didn't care about anything anymore.  
Especially myself.

That's when a caring, elderly woman found me and gave me a reason to continue my existence.  
So, I took up my chopsticks and said, "Itadakimasu!"

 ***/*/*/***

"No one eats crepe with ice cream when it's raining." I comment as I give him a critical look.  
"You've got chocolate falling…"

So, as I pull my hand away, you catch my wrist. Under an ice cream shop while eating strawberry and chocolate and avoiding the flooding rain, you smile brightly at me. You kiss my left palm while licking the chocolate with your tongue.

I blush until I feel my ears are burning. Then, you hold firmly onto my hand with our hands interlocked even though I have an eyebrow up and am looking at you with a disapproving expression.

"Why did you…" I sigh because I simply can't talk through my flustered state. I want to protest, but I simply can't because of those shining eyes and that contagiously radiant smile.

"You don't need a reason for everything, do you, Ojou-san?" He pulls me into the rain even though it's insane. We're running from one storefront to another as if it's a childhood game.

But the tears on my face are integrating with the rain falling. He's just kissed the hand that I used to cry about and curse. He's fallen in love with a part of me that I tried to block out with all my might.  
How many times had I tried to perfect becoming emotionless through 'training' so that my sword could come out without me wincing or screaming out in pain?

And we're still eating crepe with ice cream like weirdos because he felt like taking me out. It was to calm me down after seeing me so upset earlier.

 _/"No matter what, Arashi when you're taken away, smile for me. So that mom will know you'll be all right."/_

Now, I understand why she did what she did – why she left her position as miko, had me, and smiled the way she did whenever she rubbed my left hand to wash it earnestly….  
My eyes watch the pandemonium in the sky.

Then, I look at you. As best as I can, I turn to you, close my eyes, and smile as best as I know how.  
Living's strange and funny that way, isn't it?

You can't control the road to destruction  
and happiness is so individualistic  
that it almost becomes a stigma

that you proudly display for all your efforts  
to justify the investment of your life.

I grip onto his hand even tighter than before. He laughs as he winks at me while we run in the rain.  
"I never thought the rain could be this fun," I comment as my eyes take a glimpse of his.  
"Me neither."

 **Owari.**

Author's note: After an hour of trying to figure out what to write, I suddenly thought of Arashi's mother. She must have been a very interesting character, but I envisioned her having a duality between being strong and weak at the same time based on her experiences and the way she lived with her daughter.

Well, this waffy fic is for Arashi-san because I promised I'd write one! I hope you liked it!

And thank you, Rei-chan, for always being patient with this slow writer. T_T

Love,  
Yui

Monday, July 18, 2005  
12:14:30 AM


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